#LifeOfAnIntern

#LifeOfAnIntern

Let me begin by letting y’all know, I was MADE for the city. I love walking everywhere. I look forward to long metro rides and the interesting people I will meet (“the metro was running slowly” is not a bad excuse for being late to meet friends, either!).  I cannot contain my excitement when I see food trucks along random roads. I meander into every corner of the city during my free time. I wear comfortable shoes for the commute and change into cute shoes for my work day. I have decided that I want to live in a big city and that when I do, I will not have my car with me. Most importantly, even my feet and my blisters are beginning to get used to the city life of walking, walking, walking, and walking some more :)

The last three weeks have been a blur. I feel as if I have been living in DC for over a month. My apartment feels like home. My roommates and friend, whom I barely know, feel like family. My metro routes have been determined. My SmartTrip (metro) card has been refilled multiple times. I have been lost in the city on numerous occasions. I have been here less than a month, yet I am ready to be here forever!

One of the parts of big city life that I was not prepared for is the fact that public transit systems never run on time. This is not a huge problem if you have a short commute. But, I have about a 40-50 minute commute every morning and every afternoon. While I love my metro commute, I do not love that sometimes it takes 40 minutes and other days it takes 70 minutes. I take two different metros to Alexandria and then a bus from there to my internship. I have learned to be patient and that I discover  a plethora of new places when I have spare time and decide to walk to work instead of taking the bus. I also always enjoy chatting with new folks on the metro.

I am interning as a Patient Navigator at a non-profit called Nueva Vida. Nueva Vida works with Latina women who have cancer. I spent my first four days learning how to navigate the online case management system (where the files of the clients are stored in a uniform manner). Now, I spend time making phone calls to women to remind them of their appointments and recording the information within the online system. I also am working on creating a smoother process for keeping track of the recordings, phone calls, and letters that we send. Yesterday, I was lucky enough to be able to work at our annual Art Exhibit fundraiser and to meet our Board of Directors and spend time getting to know our Executive Director. Today, I traveled farther than usual to meet a group of women at their community building class in the community of a trailer home park. I was included in their community, engaged with them during the class, spoke Spanish for two hours, helped the women fill out their medical history on the forms for mammograms and pap smears, and enjoyed homemade Mexican food. Not only am I in love with DC, but I am in love with the non-profit sector of DC and with Nueva Vida.

First Day

Washington Nationals Game with My Rommates

Oh, Georgetown Cupcakes, too!

Nueva Vida Art Exhibit Fundraiser

Snapshots of DC